7 Secretarial Takes

Goodness, what a long week. And it’s raining, so how ‘bout some takes.

One
My weather app says that it is not, in fact, raining. It is only cloudy with a light autumnal breeze. So I must be wrong, because technology is certainly the measure of my true reality. Glad to have that cleared up.
Two
Matt posted too “cleverly” on Facebook that I am filling in this week for our inimitable and irreplaceable church secretary. She is allowed to have a holiday only if she accomplishes the impossible and actually does replace herself—at least as far as the tedious work of bulletin building, nobody can possibly keep the whole congregation, or Matt, as calm as she does. She is usually able to do this with an amount of begging, pleading, and threatening, as our church is basically stuffed with intelligent and clever people who are more than able to think their way through the vagaries of a dumb brick computer. But the main one went and had herself a big fat glorious baby this week—which seems, to me, a rather extreme way of getting out of the job—and so the lot fell to me. Which is fine because I was the Original Church Secretary. I did it years ago, back in the day before the computer could talk to the copier and everything had to be meticulously arranged on the website, lest the whole congregation devolve into a crumbling information-less mess. And also back before the day when Matt could text the secretary every thirty seconds. Man, the days before texting were so golden. I wish we could go back there.
Three
Being church secretary does seem like one of those jobs that only a woman can do—like bank telling, doing the laundry, delivering babies (whether as the mother or as the doctor), writing things on a calendar, taking everything out of the cupboard, scrubbing the cupboard, and putting everything back again. When you cast your eye around for a church secretary, you don’t easily settle on a man. It is, undoubtedly, the patriarchy that is at fault for this, and also the false belief that women can multitask and men can’t.
Four
Whereas, I can’t multitask. Not at all. If I am on the phone I can’t simultaneously fill in page numbers for the insert and pour milk for a child and figure out why the copier isn’t working. No human can do this. But the expectation is that the woman should be able to.
Five
Didn’t listen to the Kavanaugh hearings while I was batting back the children and trying to figure out how to get a phone number off of caller ID. I can oversee a Latin quiz and show someone how to look up “circumcision” in the dictionary—because homeschooling is multitasking but it doesn’t count for some reason—but I can’t also deal with the cultural weight of this moment. I will probably watch both testimonies tonight with a whole gallon of wine—not beer, so don’t worry…and also, just kidding, I can’t possibly drink a whole gallon in one sitting—weeping gently and biting my nails.
Six
I mean, as it unfolded all week it seemed rather like a Greek tragedy. Whatever your politics happen to be, it was curious to watch the whole world level up for battle, and for these two people to wait and wait and then enter the ring. And whoever it was who tweeted, “Everybody loses” is exactly right. Whoever does “win” in the end will have done so at such a great cost that we might all look back later and wonder which parts were worth it.
Seven
But then, it is probably very female of me to see it this way—to wish that both people didn’t have to be humiliated, to wish that for a whole century marriage had been culturally preserved as the only good and right place for sex, to wish that so many lies hadn’t been told about what constitutes true happiness. A wish and a song. It’s all a handful of dust. To console myself I’m going to go dig up my old battered copy of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies. Because why not.

Have a nice weekend, and go check out more takes!. I’ll be doing the bulletin while western civilization burns to the ground.